Good morning, it’s Friday.
A scheduling announcement is in order: There will be no Rise and Shine this coming Monday, Sept. 21, 2026, as I will be observing Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish year.
The Day of Atonement, as Yom Kippur is also known, lasts from sundown Sunday, Sept. 20, through sundown the next day (about 25 hours, give or take). During this time Jews abstain from food, water, work, sex – pretty much everything BUT prayer and reflection.
All healthy adults over the age of 13 (those who have made bar or bat mitzvah – the ritual marking religious maturity) are expected to fast throughout the entirety of the holiday. Younger children, from the age of 9 or older, are encouraged to delay eating.
However, anyone whose health might be put at risk by fasting – the very young, the very old, those with medical conditions, those with eating disorders (current or recovering), those who need to take medications etc. – are prohibited from doing so.
The purpose of the fast is to fulfill a commandment in the Torah for Jews to “afflict” themselves in an effort to turn inward, away from physical concerns, and focus fulling on repenting for wrongdoings over the past year. The idea is to get in touch with your inner angel – your better self, so to speak, and recommit to being a better person.
Jews believe that Yom Kippur is the day of judgement, during which the gates of heaven open and God looks down upon us, inscribing in the Book of Life the fate of every individual for the coming year. Through prayer (Tefillah) and repentance (Teshuva) and charity (Tzedakah) , it is believed, one has a chance of influencing one’s outcome for the better.
Also prohibited on Yom Kippur: Wearing leather; applying lotions, oils or perfumes; washing or bathing. It is also traditional to wear white to symbolize humility, purity, and the willingness to make a fresh start. It’s also customary to ask for forgiveness from those who you have wronged – though technically, you shouldn’t really be saving up all your “I”m sorrys” for once a year.
A vert mixed bag of a weekend is ahead, weather wise. Today looks not bad, with temperatures topping out close to 80 degrees, and partly cloudy skies. Then, however, the thermometer is going to take a bit of a nosedive into the 60s, with partly cloud skies on Saturday and Monday and rain on Sunday.
In the headlines…
The White House on Thursday withdrew its nomination of Lance Schroyer to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, less than three months after President Donald Trump selected him to run the agency at the front of his mass-deportation campaign.
Schroyer, former Oklahoma state trooper who has little experience in immigration, is close to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma. The White House offered no comment in a brief statement.
Trump pulled Schroyer’s name after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blocked the nominee’s confirmation hearing, stalling the process from moving forward.
An internal Department of Homeland Security email raises new questions about the agency’s efforts to hunt for non-U.S. citizens who may be on state voter rolls or have cast ballots in the past.
Ousted board members of the U.S. Institute of Peace are asking a federal court to block the imminent carving of Trump’s name on the headquarters of the nonpartisan institution he sought to dismantle shortly after taking office.
The Trump administration has held up the publication of an annual Internal Revenue Service estimate of unpaid taxes, a delay that could mask the fiscal cost of the steep decline in the agency’s ability to audit the rich.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday told members of the anti-vaccine group he founded that they had “a strong and steadfast friend at the White House” and that he would “die with my boots on” pursuing answers about the risks of vaccines.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez plans to campaign across New York for the midterm elections, and she has donated $300,000 to help boost the Democratic ticket in her home state as speculation has swirled over whether she will run for Senate or president in 2028.
Gov. Kathy Hochul Thursday said state regulators will expand energy affordability guidelines that seek to limit costs to 6% of household incomes.
A new report highlights that unsafe levels of lead remain prevalent in public school water systems across New York, a decade after the state passed laws for testing drinking water in schools.
U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler and Hochul don’t agree on much, but they’ve both concluded that supporting AI data centers is bad politics.
Hochul vowed Thursday to make more than 2.7 million New York public, parochial and private school students eligible for “freedom scholarships” despite opposition from the powerful teachers union.
New York Attorney General Letitia James Thursday urged workers with information about potential dangers at companies developing artificial intelligence to report concerns to her office’s new secure whistleblower site.
State Sen. Lea Webb’s campaign paid her sister thousands of dollars as the Democratic lawmaker fell behind on her mortgage for the house they share in Broome County.
The number of measles cases in New York has more than quadrupled since the start of August and is already higher than what was recorded for all of 2025.
Saritha Komatireddy, the Republican nominee for state attorney general, wants more New Yorkers with severe mental illnesses who present a danger to themselves or others to be involuntarily committed to a treatment facility.
Not too long ago, Republicans were salivating at the thought of using New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a far-left boogeyman. Instead, moderate Gov. Hochul has emerged as the GOP’s go-to foil.
Hundreds of Jewish students and community leaders are expected to gather outside Gracie Mansion this morning in a demonstration against Mamdani ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to New York next week.
If there were any doubts that New York City’s economic development agency is cantering toward a new era under the Mamdani administration, its new leader, Tony Shorris, laid them to rest in his first public speech.
Response times for ambulances and fire companies increased significantly in New York City last fiscal year, continuing a trend, according to data released in the Mayor’s Management Report. The New York City Police Department got slower too.
Mamdani proudly bragged Thursday about fixing the 200,000th pothole this year on the city’s streets — but his self-congratulatory victory lap didn’t even stack up to his hero Bill de Blasio’s record.
City Council Members are pressuring Mamdani to drop a city lawsuit blocking $10,000 checks for paraprofessionals – claiming they’ll drop the giveaway if he comes to the bargaining table and opens the Big Apple’s checkbook.
New Yorkers should brace for protests every day of next week’s United Nations General Assembly, along with street closures and other travel disruptions beginning Sunday, city officials said.
A second person has died in connection with a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in the South Bronx, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin said yesterday.
New York City health officials announced initiatives to curb the amount of lead that is still making its way into schools’ drinking water, as an environmental advocacy group totted up the number of public schools whose infrastructure still lets the neurotoxin in.
A whopping 9,284 Gen Zers traded the New York metropolitan area for Philadelphia just 90 miles south, making it the country’s second-most-popular migration route for the generation, behind only trading Los Angeles for nearby Riverside, California.
For the first time in over a year, a lawsuit to open Columbia’s campus gates is moving forward.
Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center on Thursday cleared a major hurdle to becoming part of the city’s public hospital system, even as the long-discussed merger remains contentious in the surrounding community of Borough Park.
The former editor in chief of an influential hip-hop magazine pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to investigators to protect her boyfriend in a case that involved the theft of more than $300,000 from a public-defender organization.
The midterm campaign season may be in full swing, but 2028 has also been top of mind for deep-pocketed donors in Nassau and Suffolk who have spent the past few months holding listening sessions with potential presidential contenders.
Long Island’s racing crown jewel Belmont now has a futuristic new look, an added track to introduce winter racing, first-class dining and amenities, plus acres of a game-changing spectator infield that can be repurposed for concerts and other non-equestrian events.
After years of watching a black fungus spread across a hamlet in the northeastern Adirondacks where a company is aging its whiskey, state regulators are intervening in a historic way.
The Bethlehem Town Board has backed away from some of the most dramatic changes in its proposed updates to the town’s zoning law after pausing the process over the summer.
A judge threw out a case against a Halfmoon woman whom local deputies accused of animal cruelty in connection with the heat-exhaustion death of a dog at her boarding business.
Town Supervisor Jack Conway doesn’t want Flock Safety automated license plate readers in East Greenbush, saying it’s “too much surveillance,”
Six people were taken to the hospital after a fire Thursday afternoon in an apartment at the Towers of Colonie.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
